Apple Concierge in Retail Stores: Think Security

By John Martellaro

Oct 24th, 2007 5:00 PM EDT

Apple is about to alter the way customers enter many of their retail stores,
according to a story at ifo AppleStore on Thursday.
A concierge will soon greet entering customers and get them the help they require. It appears to be just
good customer service, but there are other implications.

Currently, anyone can walk into an Apple retail store, unnoticed, wander
around and leave. For some, thatis annoying because no one has recognized
their presence and sought to direct them to a salesperson. Worse,
at any given moment, most Apple retail store sales people are engaged
with a customer, fetching a product, or attending to some other task.

On the surface, the concierge position appears to solve just that problem very nicely.

However, this action by Apple is also in line with other markets.
When you walk into any one of the high end hotel lobbies late at night,
someone at the front desk will most likely hail and greet you. Take
notice of you.
When this reporter enters the local Best Buy, the security guys
at the front door station always greet me and make eye contact.

They are friendly and observant.

Not only is a concierge a good path to customer service, but also
has a beneficial side effect. It says, essentially, weive seen you come
into our store. We recognize you. You are on notice that we may
look at you again and observe your activities in the store.

The new Apple concierge service is written with great glamor and glee
in the job postings, but it also will greatly assist with security
in subtle ways. Thatis important, now that Apple is growing so fast.
Many other companies have recognized this, and Iim surprised Apple took
so long to implement it.